An e-retailer puts her stamp of approval on a free shipping service offer

By Zak StamborManaging Editor

When Elaine Milstein saw that Stamps.com was waiving its subscription fee for eBay merchants, she signed up immediately. She can print all her shipping labels and postage from her office, without waiting in line at the post office.

Elaine Milstein finds the post office is the most efficient way to ship the costume jewelry she sells through her BijouxBazaar store on eBay.com. But going to the post office once or twice a day, often waiting on line each time, wasn’t efficient.

That’s why she wasted little time signing up in mid-October when Stamps.com offered to waive its $15.99 monthly subscription fee for eBay merchants. Now she can print her postage and mailing labels right from her PC.

“Before I had to physically go to the post office,” Milstein says. “Now I can do it all from the desk.” She also likes the fact that Stamps.com can handle international orders, which account for about half of her sales of vintage and antique costume jewelry, as well as Priority Mail and standard domestic postage.

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Stamps.com now has thousands of eBay merchants using its service, a spokeswoman says. While Stamps.com doesn’t make any money if those merchants only process eBay orders using the Stamps.com system, retailers do have to pay a subscription fee if they want to use the service to print postage and labels for orders through Amazon.com, Yahoo Stores, Google Checkout or their own shopping carts.